NETA: Each player except septimus may make one more $1-raising bid. iiandyii must wait until the pool is $999. Dead Cat may act when it is $998 or $999. Little Nemo and Russian Heel may make their final bids at any time. (With no activity, and no pending high bid, Octarine is dropped by Moderator ruling.)
The game is temporarily suspended while we agree on the end-game protocol.
I have an elegant idea for how to fix the ending, but it’s too late to use the idea this round, so we’ll need a spearate procedure for this round.
Two goals are:
(1) I strongly think it best to avoid any procedure where players might feel compelled to remain on-line, watchful in the thread.
(2) We need a way to collapse the Jockeying for Last Bid into a simple paradigm. I have a proposal though we may not use it in the present game: Players may bid for Right to make Final $1 bid. When the pool gets to $999 suppose the high bid on Final Right is $5. The high bidder on that right makes final bid, and also contributes $5 cash: $1 to each of the high bidders on the five highest-price candidates. Similarly, a Player could bid for Right to Penultimate Bid (the bid at $998).
But for this game …
I encourage Little Nemo to retract his pass and join the bidding players, but suppose that he asks for a permanent pass. Now we’d have three players (Heel, Cat, Andy) competing for three bidding slots (ultimate, penultimate, greekword?). What would be best or fairest?
One option is to set the bids per random.org, weighting their chances as 50%, 35%, 15% (respectively, as in the playing list). But this would be unfair to Andyii who has had the foresight to challenge Cat to a Who’s On First? maneuver, assuming he guesses the Nemo abstention to continue. Other chance weights might be as good, including 33%, 33%, 33%.
What do other players think? A randomized order for the remaining turns? Even if players took two days for their compulsory bid … it will be a long time until the Pool is awarded.
Now let’s assume that Little Nemo agrees to exercise his right to a vote. I’d still support the use of random.org with, say, a schedule like this one, where Cat and Andy get the best shot at coveted final bid.
Final bid Penult Bid Now
Little Nemo 15% 33% 34%
Russian Heel 17% 33% 28%
Dead Cat 34% 17% 19%
Iiandyii 34% 17% 19%
Septimus 0 0 0
Octarine 0 0 0
May I hear a voice of support for this table? I’ll consider it passed if I hear two or three Yeas and zero Nays. Is it unfair to Octraine? He/she has made only an almost-joke bid and otherwise been inactive.
Isn’t such a random.org simplest and fairest at this point?
I don’t understand. I’ll try and read it again in the morning.
I know I’m being encouraged to bid more. But I still plan on staying where I’m at. I currently have 350 “dollars” invested in three candidates with a chance at a $1000 pot. I figure 3-1 is good odds with my picks.
I suppose I could raise each of my bids by a dollar and lock down the bets. Or I could steal three other candidates. But I’m not seeing the attraction of doing this. The other other candidate I’d be interested in is Bush and betting on him would put me in for over half the pot. I’d rather stick with longer odds for a better payout. And the cheaper candidates seem like such long shots to me that I’d feel I was wasting my money. (Even at 200-1 odds, I’m not putting money on Jindal.)
So any method of letting people close this out is fine by me. (Unless somebody jumps on my bets.)
Sorry this has gotten so complicated. :eek: Thank you to to all Players for helping me work out the bugs in this Karachi Auction. Part of the problem was my being both player and moderator. But I promise to make no further bids so can now serve as a better moderator.
If Dead Cat, iiandyii, and russian heel all send me, via PM, the bid or bids thay are still happy to make, I may be able to work out a mutually acceptable ending.
(For example, if Dead Cat wants to bid on Huntsman or Christie; and iiandyii only on Christie, I could assign a Huntsman bid to Dead Cat, Christie to iiandyii and end the auction without further ado.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
If we ever have a 2nd round of Karachi auction, the rules might be better organized. :o :smack:
Don’t feel bad. I remember trying to organize a Nomic thread and keep it on track.
I’ve received PM’s from both Dead Cat and iiandyii. Their bids are on different candidates, so both will go through. *As soon as **russian heel *posts or PMs a bid, the auction will be over. (Russian heel needs to bid on a 3rd candidate different from Dead Cat and iiandyii to get it; otherwise the effect will be to just make the other pay $2 instead of $1.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I think the auction went OK. If we play again I’d start by posting more detailed rules. I’d want a minimum of five players to express interest before starting a new round. The first five to sign up would be eligible for a lottery: one player would acquire the right and duty to make the final $999–>$1000 bid; another would get the $998–>$999 bid, and so on.
The right to the last bid could be bought or sold independent of the pool. I’ll guess that the right to make the final bid might sell for $3 or $4, penultimate bid for about $1. We’ll see.
Final bids:russian heel bids Jindal $5
Dead Cat bids Bush $263
iiandyii bids Scott Walker $104
**Auction Concludes – Successful Bids
Jeb Bush $263 (Dead Cat)
Ben Carson $10 (Dead Cat)
Mike Huckabee $24 (Dead Cat)
Rand Paul $60 (Dead Cat)
Rick Perry $10 (Dead Cat)
Donald Trump $10 (Dead Cat)
Chris Christie $50 (Little Nemo)
Marco Rubio $200 (Little Nemo)
Rick Santorum $100 (Little Nemo)
Ted Cruz $71 (iiandyii)
John Kasich $4 (iiandyii)
Scott Walker $104 (iiandyii)
Field, male $22 (iiandyii)
Jon Huntsman $10 (septimus)
Mitt Romney $21 (septimus)
Paul Ryan $30 (septimus)
Field, female $6 (septimus)
Bobby Jindal $5 (russian heel)
Total pool $1000
Account Balances
Dead Cat -$377
Little Nemo -$350
iiandyii -$201
septimus -$67
russian heel -$5
Ticket_GN1 +$1000
(Please report any errors)**
Future rule changes include more detailed schedules of permitted bids and a lottery for rights to make the last 3 bids. I’ll post details if/when there’s sufficient interest in another round.
I’m pretty happy with how that turned out. I probably wasted a bit of money (well actually, it’s a certainty we all wasted some money, unless Jindal wins in which case russian heel has wasted nothing!), by which I mean I would probably get rid of some of my holdings given the chance, but I think my $377 is more than $27 better than Little Nemo’s $350.
I’m about to go on holiday for 2 weeks with little internet access but would be interested in another round after that.
Ironically, I feel the same way in that I feel I have a better pack than you do. In my opinion, there are five candidates who have a realistic chance of being nominated and I have three of them.
I don’t think Santorum has a realistic chance and I’m not sure if Christie does either. But we’ll see 
I think my bids were best, of course. And everyone must agree with me :).
Kasich certainly isn’t a first tier candidate, but he has a lot better than a 0.4% chance to win, in my mind. And Walker was a steal at $104, IMO. And I think Cruz is the most likely far-right nutter candidate if the rabid part of the base finally gets their way (which I think might be more likely than in past elections).
Although I’ve only $67 invested, I think I’m getting excellent odds on the longshots I’m playing. Romney and Huntsman each seems far more moderate and tolerable than other candidates, and GOP may come to its senses. iiandyii, I’ll pay $25 for your Field-Male.
No thank you.
There was a time in the past when I also would have thought Santorum didn’t have a chance. But he proved me wrong in 2012. Say what you will about the man, he was able to get votes and make a respectable second-place show behind Romney.
As for Christie, he seems to have been able to walk away from the bridge scandal. I think his campaign will be based on the theme that he’s a conservative but one who will be able to get votes from outside the conservative base. He’ll be arguing that Republicans should put electability ahead of ideological purity.
Looking at these results ten weeks later, Dead Cat looks like the big winner – especially if he sells his Trump ticket soon before the inevitable(?) slide. Or am I all wet about Trump? The more he “puts his foot in his mouth,” the more he charms the voters. Betfair has him at 15% to be the nominee and over 6% to be the next President of the U.S.A.! :eek:
My own results look very dismal, but with one possible gem: Field-Female includes Carly Fiorina, who is worth $65 according to PredictWise.
I think my gets of Cruz and Kasich are looking pretty good right now too.
Wow, looking back at this thread is very interesting. Dead Cat looks like the big winner. There might still be a chance that Little Nemo wins with Trump, and my Cruz and Kasich picks are still around, but look to have a very small chance to pull it out. Everyone else is out.
I’m confused, isn’t that low?
Look at the date – that was several months ago.